Frank Calabrese creates maps with GIS technology that show where victories in judicial elections may be found

To say that Frank Calabrese is somewhat intense is like saying that a laser beam is a somewhat focused beam of light.

As the old expression goes, he's the kind of guy who would make coffee nervous.

So it seemed appropriate to meet him recently, as I did, at a Northwest Side Starbucks. I was on time. Frank was already ensconced at a table, typing on his laptop, waving me over before I'd gotten fully inside the store.

I was not surprised to see that he was also working on a tall cup of something while hammering on the keyboard and scanning the horizon for bloggers. I was surprised when he showed me that the cup contained hot chocolate. "I don't really like coffee," he said.

What Frank Calabrese likes is politics. To be specific, he likes political campaigning.

He's worked in all sorts of races, including aldermanic races (where he got his start, he says), the most recent mayoral race, the State's Attorney race, the Clerk of the Circuit Court race, and several judicial races. These days, he told me, he's doing a lot of research on candidates, sometimes for candidates who don't even know he's working on their behalf.

(Candidates hire someone else, Frank said, and that person enlists Frank, more or less as a subcontractor.)

Frank dropped lots of names. I didn't pick any up. That's not why I was there.

This is why I was there (click to enlarge or clarify):

Frank Calabrese has found a way, using an Excel code he's written, to meld Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology with precinct level results from the City and County election authorities to show where candidates actually received support. Frank wanted to share some of the maps he's created from recent judicial campaigns.

Each candidate is represented by a different color on the map -- but the astute reader, or at least one using a larger screen, will soon notice that some red- or green- or blue-shaded areas are darker than others. The greater a candidate's vote percentage in a given precinct, the darker the color on the map. Chicago is so Balkanized, Frank noted; nowhere else in the country can a candidate get 70% support on one block -- but only 10% on the next.

In the first map, above, showing the race for the Dooling vacancy, the slated candidate won the primary; in the map below, showing the race for the Brewer vacancy, the slated candidate came up short.

Frank noted that both slated candidates did well in African-American communities and in Evanston where, he says, the Democratic organization is still quite strong. But Tom Sianis, though victorious, did not carry many North Shore precincts beyond Evanston. Tim Leeming, who had the Tribune endorsement, won those areas. Oran Whiting, who also had the Tribune endorsement, fared much better in those North Shore areas than Sianis.

Whiting's campaign, however, fared poorly in Northwest and Southwest Side communities where many police officers and firefighters live. John Maher, an Assistant State's Attorney who prosecuted gang crimes, received his strongest support in those areas.

There were two ASA's among the four candidates for the countywide Clay vacancy. One of these, Kathaleen Lanahan, who enjoyed the Tribune's endorsement, won the race. Her colleague in the State's Attorney's Office, Michael O'Malley, carried many Northwest and Southwest Side precincts. Neither enjoyed the official endorsement of the Democratic Party:

O'Malley did not have a lot of endorsements, but he did have one from the FOP.

These maps illustrate, fairly dramatically, that the 'boosts' that some candidates seem to receive, based on their surnames, or gender, or from the Tribune endorsement are real. Calabrese acknowledged that the maps provide confirmation of what Dr. Albert Klumpp has been reporting for years.

But the maps also show that -- as many candidates have learned to their sorrow -- the endorsement of the Democratic Party is, in and of itself, no guarantee of victory in a judicial primary election.

Frank Calabrese is a young man, often (he noted) quite a bit younger than the judicial candidates with whom he consults. Mature, successful lawyers may be wary of taking the advice of someone half their age. Instead, Frank noted, judicial candidates often prefer to rely on mentors who ran successful judicial campaigns -- but the political landscape has changed with the passage of time, Frank contends. He created these maps, he told me, to illustrate this.

Certainly Frank's maps illustrate, again, that all politics is local. In Chicago, often very local.

Guest Post: Dr. Klumpp reports on record spending in 2018 judicial primary

by Albert J. Klumpp

After the March primary election I provided FWIW with an analysis of the results of Cook County’s judicial contests. At that time I did not have data on campaign spending by the candidates, since the required quarterly spending reports covering the first and second quarters of the year were not yet due at the state elections office.

Those reports are now on file and I have compiled total spending numbers for all 110 candidates. While I won’t be rerunning the full statistical analysis for some time yet, there was some interest expressed here in seeing the spending numbers, so here is a brief summary:

The candidates spent a total of $7,966,104. The average per candidate of $72,419 sets a new record high for a single year, well ahead of 2014’s $62,605. On a per-vacancy basis the average for each of the 39 vacancies was $204,259; this figure is second only to the 2004 average of $245,688. (In 2004, though, there were only eighteen vacancies, an abnormally low number that resulted in the number of candidates per vacancy being higher than usual. So the comparison is not a good one.)

The 26 countywide candidates spent an average of $79,398, surpassing the previous highest figure (in 2008) by more than ten percent. Analysis has shown that the impact of campaign spending on vote percentages in countywide judicial contests is almost negligible, yet spending by countywide candidates has continued to increase over the years.

The 84 subcircuit candidates spent an average of $70,259, surpassing the previous high (in 2004) likewise by more than ten percent. What stands out most about this figure is that it was not driven by the wealthier and traditionally more competitive subcircuits in the outer and northern suburbs and North Side, but rather reflects unprecented spending elsewhere. For instance:

• In the 2nd Subcircuit the previous high for total spending was roughly $156,000. This year it exceeded $700,000. In part this was because the numbers of vacancies and candidates--six and thirteen, respectively--were much higher than usual, but even in terms of averages the amount is the highest ever.
• Candidates in the 5th Subcircuit spent more than $516,000, more than double the previous high.
• In the 6th Subcircuit, eight candidates pursuing three vacancies spent more than $1 million. This was more than 2½ times the previous high.

The ten highest spending individual candidates overall were:

Candidate	Race	Campaign Spending
James "Jaime" Shapiro	8th Subc.	$491,127
Jack Hagerty	Countywide	$413,053
Michael B. Barrett	15th Subc.	$308,078
Tom Sam Sianis	Countywide	$240,811
Kent Delgado	6th Subc.	$228,353
Oran F. Whiting	Countywide	$220,667
Robert Harris	5th Subc.	$190,859
Susanne Groebner	13th Subc.	$185,458
Sean Patrick Kelly	6th Subc.	$179,617
Robin Denise Shoffner	8th Subc.	$179,285

The Shapiro total is a new record high for a Circuit Court candidate, surpassing the $419,051 spent by Megan Goldish in 2014, and is the twelfth-highest figure for any judicial primary campaign in Cook County since 1980 (where my data set begins).

Finally, some fine print: All of the above figures include in-kind contributions that are equivalent to actual expenditures; they exclude irrelevant items such as post-election parties and charitable donations, ISBE civil fines, and accounting adjustments such as loan repayments that the ISBE requires be classified as expenditures. The intent is to include only those amounts that are spent directly on the effort to attract votes. All pre-2018 figures are adjusted for inflation to allow for direct comparisons.

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Albert J. Klumpp has been a generous and frequent contributor to this blog over the years. A research analyst with a public policy PhD, Klumpp is the author of several scholarly works analyzing judicial elections including, most recently, Alaska’s Judicial Retention Elections: A Comparative Analysis, 34 Alaska Law Review 143-160 (2017). Other works include Judicial Primary Elections in Cook County, Illinois: Fear the Irish Women!, 60 DePaul L. Rev. 821 (2011); "Voter Information and Judicial Retention Elections in Illinois," 94 Ill. B.J. 538 (October 2006); and "Cook County Judicial Elections: Partisanship, Campaign Spending, & Voter Information," CBA Record, January 2007 (p. 34).

What the heck happened to the candidate list in the sidebar?

The March primary is history. So it was time to archive the list of primary candidate websites (the websites can still be found, if you're looking, and if the sites themselves are still 'live,' at this Page Two post).

But there are still some sites left in the sidebar here.

These are the candidates facing contested elections in November.

To recap, in the 12th Subcircuit, Democrat Joel Chupack will face Republican David Studenroth. Studenroth's campaign website remains in the sidebar. Chupack did not have a website for the primary (he used this Facebook page). If he gets a website, I'll add it to the list.

There are three contests in the 13th Subcircuit. Republican Gary W. Seyring will now face Democrat (and former judge) Ketki "Kay" Steffen for the Crane vacancy. Democrat Shannon P. O'Malley (once known as Philip Spiwak) will face Daniel Patrick Fitzgerald for the Lawrence vacancy. Republican Christine Svenson will face Democrat Judge Samuel Betar III for the O'Donnell vacancy.

You'll note websites for Seyring, Steffen, Fitzgerald and Svenson in the abbreiviated sidebar. I don't know of any campaign websites for O'Malley or Betar yet -- but I'll add these as well if they come online.

Finally, in the 15th Subcircuit, one of the two vacancies on the November ballot will be contested: Democrat Scott McKenna will face Republican Karla Marie Fiaoni. McKenna's website remains in the shriveled sidebar; I don't yet have any website for Fiaoni.

All the other many vacancies on the November ballot will be uncontested.

Which is why voting in the primary is so important... but, then, we've talked about this before....

Looking more at the limitations of judicial evaluations

Second in a series. For the first article in this series, scroll down or click here.

In a March 27 story on Injustice Watch ("Cook County judicial voters reject old habits, disfavor poorly rated candidates"), Mari Cohen and Olivia Stovicek reviewed the results of last month's judicial primary. Among the theses of the article was that, in this election, good bar ratings were important to primary voters.

But the authors also spoke with former DePaul Law School Dean (and former Circuit Court and Appellate Court Judge) Warren Wolfson, who poured a little rain on their parade: "Though most candidates consistently found unqualified lost, 'that doesn’t mean the others are qualified,' [Wolfson] said. 'Unless someone’s been sitting as a judge, you don’t really know how they’re going to behave.'"

In other words, Wolfson said that good bar ratings do not automatically equal good judicial performance; good performance in office is the best predictor of continued good performance.

If a mere blogger expresses such an opinion, it is just another blast of hot air in the Ether. But, when a person of Judge Wolfson's experience and credibility offers it, it becomes worthy of examination.

Don't get me wrong: I support the considerable efforts of the Chicago Bar Association and the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening in investigating and formulating evaluations of Cook County judicial candidates. I believe the bar ratings are important for persons looking to make informed choices when they vote for judge. I'm a fan.

Of course, I was a bigger fan of bar ratings during the many years that I was rated recommended or qualified by each and every bar group. In 2015, when my credentials were reexamined in conjunction with my application for associate judge, although I retained positive ratings from the CBA and most of the Alliance bar groups, a few of the Alliance groups decided I was no longer qualified. I therefore withdrew from the 2015 AJ applicant pool and did not reapply in 2017 (negative Alliance ratings remain in force for three years). I was perhaps less of a fan of bar ratings from that point forward. This merely proves I'm human.

Because of my newfound perspective, I can better understand the negative evaluation my friend Bonnie McGrath gives bar ratings. McGrath wrote a March 5 post on Chicago Now, a Tribune blogging platform, entitled, "I lost my faith in the bar association ratings of Cook County judicial candidates a long time ago and you should, too."

My faith in the bar evaluation process has been merely shaken, not lost. So there are many things in McGrath's post with which I disagree. But there is no human endeavor that cannot be improved. So, even though I support bar evaluations generally, I can agree with McGrath when she is critical of some terms that crop up often in bar evaluations, like "complex litigation," or "depth and breadth" [of practice].

Like Bonnie, I would sure like to know what litigation is "complex" and what is not.

The cynic in me suspects that it may sometimes be the case that 'complex' is what we do and 'not complex' is what they do. Or, perhaps, that 'complex' involves large amounts of money, while 'not complex' involves small amounts.

Either way, what a load of road apples.

In the biggest dollar case in which I was ever involved, I helped to successfully defend an eight figure jury verdict in the Appellate Court. The 'complex' part of that case was establishing the joint venture among the shipper, carrier, and logistics company/truck broker and in establishing that the truck driver was the agent of the carrier and shipper both -- and these were strategies formulated and implemented by trial counsel, not by me. On the other hand, factually, although the speeds were greater and the injuries catastrophic, it was a just a rear-end collision like so many cases in 1501. So... was that truly 'complex' litigation? (Sadly, whether it was or it wasn't 'complex' litigation, my co-counsel and I did not receive appellate counsel's traditional portion of the contingent fee in that case....)

Actually, if you read all the published evaluations over the years, as I have (of the 12 evaluating bar groups, only two, the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, consistently release written findings; the Illinois State Bar Association released written findings for the 2016 and 2018 primaries) you will see that the findings are frequently inconsistent -- Candidate A is deemed 'not qualified' because she has 'limited' trial experience or no 'recent' trial experience, but Candidate B is found qualified even though she has no trial experience because she has substantial motion practice or has managed a large group of people.

McGrath finds it distressing that the bar groups do not always agree -- how can one group say a person is qualified while another, looking at the same application, hearing the candidate at the same interview (the Alliance pools its resources in this manner), reaches the opposite conclusion?

I say it merely shows that reasonable people can differ.

But, clearly, some bar groups -- and some panels within bar groups -- are demonstrably more demanding, less likely to approve a candidate's credentials.

I would challenge those that are inclined to a more demanding view to look at themselves and at their more tolerant peers: Why do you differ? Are you falling prey to elitism? It would be interesting to compare 'qualified' ratings between solo practitioner candidates and candidates from large firms. I am pretty certain that, were one to do a systematic study, one would find that, at least for civil practitioners, solos are far more likely to be found less qualified than their brothers or sisters from large firms. Why?

Of course, I am a solo, so this hits close to home -- so let me use my own practice as an example: Thirteen years ago I was just finishing up a massive consolidated case -- it lasted nearly nine years, and I'd been involved in the case from the beginning. There'd been 10 consolidated cases at one time, a related federal case, an interlocutory trip to the Appellate Court, all capped off by a lengthy trial. Complex enough for you? And (at the risk of bragging here) I achieved a very good result in that case -- something that did me no good at all, from a business standpoint, because the insurer who was funding that defense went into liquidation and runoff as my case was winding down. But the bar associations loved me then.

Over the next several years, I had a run of coverage cases, all for a different carrier. Not as much litigation -- in many respects the best coverage evaluations avoid litigation, not cause it -- but there was some. Unfortunately for both me and the carrier, I was not always successful in the litigations that did result. There are no points awarded for eloquence or effort in the world of business. All that matters are results, and the last result matters most. So, after a couple of unhappy results, the carrier moved on. But the bar associations still loved me.

I was fortunate to stumble into a replacement for the departing carrier before the phones were shut off. But the new carrier was a 'substandard' one -- defined as one that writes statutory minimum policies only -- and I found myself in 1501 on a regular basis for the first time in decades. And some of the bar associations didn't love me anymore.

Was I suddenly dumber? Well, in 1993, when I first submitted my credentials for screening, I was pretty sure I knew everything I needed to know. Now, a quarter century later, I'm still learning new stuff in every election cycle, and I still don't know enough... but I don't think that was really the problem in my case.

All during these years there were appeals of one sort or another, including the one I mentioned above. Some years there were more than others. Also, throughout this period there were other litigation matters, some more 'complex' than others -- including those that prompted me to realize the need for Zero Based Discovery.

But there were never enough contingent fee matters or appeals or private litigations to generate a consistent and predictable cash flow. Instead, it was these insurance clients who provided the most reliable income. Not the highest-paying business, but the most regular. So I've been very grateful for insurance industry work, of whatever kind, over the years.

However, my taking business from a 'substandard' may have been too downmarket for some bar evaluators. No 'recent complex litigation.'

You know what? I don't apologize for doing honest work, to the best of my ability, in an effort to support my family. And I have news for the snobs: Though the dollars involved may be small, the legal issues in some of these 'little' cases can be just as thorny as in multi-million dollar cases. Not always -- but sometimes.

The point is, unlike their brothers and sisters in larger firms, a solo must take such business as is available, when it becomes available, for as long as it remains available. And if that's too déclassé to remain 'qualified' for judicial service in the opinion of some, well, I have a short, pithy response that I will not render in print.

And it's all becoming moot anyway. Just as a new GM will favor his draft picks over those left behind from the previous regime, new management teams at an insurance company will often steer business to lawyers with whom they are more familiar. That carrier I had has gone through a couple of management changes recently and my new assignments have dwindled away. I'm anxiously looking for the next rent-paying client....

Bar evaluators perform a valuable, and too often thankless, service to the bar and to the public. The investigators really do talk to colleagues and opponents and judges before whom the would-be judge has appeared. If someone's word cannot be trusted, they will find out. If someone is lazy or mean or indecisive or pigheaded, they will find out. (Probably. I remember reading a positive rating letter to my wife one day when it arrived in the mail. She stopped me when I got to the part about good temperament: "Well, no one asked me," she said. I think she was kidding. I hope she was kidding....)

The evaluators' focus should be on finding out what sort of persons are looking for elevation to the bench. Now, if someone has only done the most mind-numbing document review for the entirety of his or her career, perhaps it is reasonable to consider how that person would be able to handle the challenges of judicial service. But bar evaluators should think twice before allowing their critique of a judicial aspirant's current practice to negatively impact their rating of the candidate -- especially where the the candidate has demonstrated the ability to handle more 'complex' work in the past.

And one other idea I will steal, er, borrow from McGrath's article: The idea of a "Not Qualified" rating -- which some bar groups use instead of "Not Recommended" -- should be scrapped in favor of a uniform "Not Recommended" rating whenever a bar group reaches a negative evaluation. Under Illinois law, every lawyer in good standing is legally "qualified" to be a judge. It is presumptuous of a bar group to suggest otherwise. Under this same reasoning, the 'Qualified' rating should be scrapped in favor of "Recommended" (or "Highly Recommended").

Sometimes candidates forget this, but bar evaluations are not endorsements. Many's the time that a bar group will rate every candidate in a race as 'recommended' (or, sadly, sometimes, 'not recommended'). Use of Recommended/Not Recommended might make it more clear that bar groups are not endorsing anyone. And, selfishly, it would make it easier for me, in putting together the Organizing the Data posts on this blog: I wouldn't have to double-check to see whether this group or that one uses "Qualified" or "Recommended" ratings (one Alliance group uses one rating for sitting judges, the other for all other candidates, and it really gets confusing if a candidate is appointed to the bench after this bar group's rating has been issued).

The time for looking at how the bar groups evaluate candidates is now, now that the primary is over, now in the brief period before the JECs must gear up again to look at retention candidates. I'm sure the various bar groups do this on a regular basis, even without prompting from bloggers. I hope that posts like this may, however, contribute to those internal conversations.

Also, for all the rest of you on the outside looking in, I can suggest one way in which you can improve the quality of bar evaluations in this county: Raise your hand. Volunteer. The more evaluators we have, from varying backgrounds, the better, and fairer, the process will be.

The forthcoming Associate Judge selection and the limitations of judicial evaluations

First in a series.

Soon (as soon as next Monday, according to one tip I received) the Nominating Committee of the Circuit Court of Cook County will reconvene. The Nominating Committee's task is to pare the February 2017 list of 272 hopefuls into a 'short list' of 34 finalists for this year's class of 17 associate judges.

The Committee's job will be complicated by that fact that, among the current pool of 272 applicants (a few presumably have dropped out along the way, but that was the original number) are several judges sitting pursuant to appointment by the Illinois Supreme Court who were not successful candidates in the primary just concluded.

To be specific, there are 18 currently-sitting judges who were not successful candidates in last month's primary. Of these 18, two did not run, one was knocked off the ballot, and 15 ran and lost. And 16 of these 18 currently-sitting judges are also in the associate judge candidate pool.

[For the record, another 16 sitting judges won their primaries. But, of these, one was appointed to a vacancy that won't be on the ballot until 2020 (she was a candidate for a different vacancy at the time she was appointed) and another still has to face a Republican opponent in November.]

Neither inside information nor clairvoyance is required to predict that some of the 16 currently-sitting judges who, for one reason or another, did not win in the primary but who did apply for associate judge, will make the short list.

However, history suggests that not all of these 16 sitting judges will make the short list. It is at least possible that one of the 16 omitted from the short list may nevertheless secure election as a write-in. It has happened in the last two associate judge selections.

There is a reason. Some of the more conspiracy-minded in the audience will have several theories on this -- and, of course, I am obliged to admit that, with so many persons involved in the selection of associate judges, there can be many reasons for the success of recent write-in campaigns.

But I submit that one reason predominates: The successful write-ins persuaded their peers that they were already good judges. Most of the persons on the last two short lists -- and, very likely, most of the persons on the forthcoming short list as well -- could not make that claim. They could only point to their favorable bar evaluations.

In the last two associate judge selections, quite a few of the applicants were rated qualified or recommended by each and every reviewing bar group. All of the finalists were.

However, in a March 27 story on Injustice Watch ("Cook County judicial voters reject old habits, disfavor poorly rated candidates"), Mari Cohen and Olivia Stovicek quote former Circuit Court and Appellate Court Judge Warren Wolfson as saying, "Unless someone's been sitting as a judge, you don't really know how they’re going to behave."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an inherent weakness in the judicial evaluation process. However high the bar ratings, until a person dons the robe and does the job, it is by no means certain that the judicial aspirant will be a good judge.

The robe hangs heavier on some shoulders than others. 'Robe-itis' comes in many forms: Some perfectly nice people, pillars of their community, hail fellows well met, will become obnoxious little tyrants simply by putting on 'the dress.' Some diligent, hard-working lawyers morph into sloths after taking the oath. Others simply cannot make the transition from zealous advocate to neutral. Robe-itis sometimes strikes even those with stellar bar ratings.

The 34 persons appointed to the Cook County bench by the Illinois Supreme Court since the filing period closed for the 2016 primary have all had an opportunity to prove to their new peers that they are immune to robe-itis. They have been given a chance to show that they can do, and are doing, the job. And, from a management standpoint, it makes sense to keep a good employee 'in harness' rather than replace him or her with an untested rookie, however highly touted.

That is not to say that any of the sitting judges who may be left off the short list, or who are not successful write-ins, have been in any way 'bad' judges. There are an abundance of worthy candidates, and politics and personalities enter into the equation here as in any human endeavor. As it has sometimes done in the past, the Supreme Court may give some of these a second chance -- and these persons may be sincerely welcomed back by their colleagues.

But -- while we're waiting for white smoke from the big conference room on the 26th floor -- perhaps we can look further at the judicial evaluation process. I plan to do so in my next post.

Following up, as promised, on "more fun with numbers" post

A couple of weeks ago, just after the primary, I wrote a post that noted that, even while the population of Chicago in particular and Cook County generally was decreasing, the voter rolls were increasing.

Using figures provided by the Tribune, the U.S. Census Bureau, and our local election authorities, I discovered that, although the county's population dropped by 42,000 in the last four years, the voting rolls increased by 224,004. (There were other examples, but this was the best.)

These numbers seemed problematic.

Now, according to the customs and practices of our current un-civil society, as a blogger in possession of a true and uncomfortable fact, I believe I would have been wholly justified in leaping to the most extreme conclusions and spewing all manner of speculations, the wilder the better, across your screen. (And, actually, being in possession of 'true' facts is probably only optional; it's the leaping and the spewing that really matters.) Fame and fortune would be mine! Maybe I could parlay this epiphany into a book deal....

On the other hand, I read the other day that bloggers getting book deals was 'so 1995.' But, perhaps, by spinning this one fact as wildly as possible, I might get booked on a cable TV shouting show. Which one, I suppose, would be dependent on whether I spun my little fact clockwise or counterclockwise.

Or, alternatively, I could ask the election authorities for an explanation.

That being the less business-savvy course, it is the one I chose. In my March 23 post, I promised to report on any responses received.

And I've now heard from both Cook County Clerk David Orr's office and the Chicago Board of Elections.

James Scalzitti, Deputy Communications Director for the Clerk's office, wrote that not all eligible voters actually register. Historically, he said, "voter rolls have only captured about 80 percent of eligible voters." But, over the past four years, the Clerk's office has done several things to identify and register hitherto unregistered voters.

Specifically, according to Scalzitti, the Clerk's office participates in ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) and the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) registry.

ERIC is a multi-state voter information sharing system, Scalzitti said. It compares Illinois' voter registration data, USPS Change of Address, death record data and some motorist info against data from other member states. From that we get reports that identify in-state movers, cross-state movers, deceased voters, in-state duplicates, and eligible but unregistered voters. "With these tools," Scalzitti wrote, "we're able to do digital canvassing of voter registrations and add missing information, such as birthdates, driver's license numbers, and also weed out old addresses, other old information."

Of course, that merely makes voter records more accurate. It does not increase registrations; it might actually decrease them. Scalzitti acknowledged, "Because of our participation in ERIC and NCOA, we've been able to do a better job of scrubbing the voter rolls of people who may have moved or died without telling us."

But, at the same time, Scalzitti noted, since 2014, "Illinoisans have been able to register online ("through the state Board of Elections website - our website directs them there.) So we've made registration easier in the last four years."

Scalzitti also cited the relatively new practice of Election Day registration. Persons can simply show up at their polling place on Election day and register. "Before anyone asks," Scalzitti cautioned, "they do have to provide two forms of ID." On March 20, according to Scalzitti, "we had 4,241 people in suburban Cook register on Election Day, 1,006 of them because their address had changed, while the remaining 3,235 were new registrations.

Moreover, people are allowed to register after the usual registration period, during Early Voting, according to Scalzitti. In "Grace Period Registration and Voting," a prospective voter, after showing ID, has to vote immediately at the early voting site; he or she can not return on Election Day.

Another 940 17-year olds were able to register for last month's primary, Scalzitti said, because they will turn 18 before the November general election. And, in general, Scalzitti noted, the Clerk's office does "a heckuva lot of outreach (voter registration events) at suburban highs schools and colleges both in the suburbs and city."

Meanwhile, according to the Chicago Board of Elections, "we will continue to have more and more inclusive (and up to date and accurate) voter rolls as the Automatic Voter Registration legislation takes hold."

The reference is to Public Act 100-0464. A key component of the AVR legislation is new §1A-16.1 of the Election Code, which provides that every application for issuance or renewal of a driver's license (other than the temporary visitor's driver's license issued to undocumented aliens) will also serve as a voter registration application. In order to evade registration under this system, a driver's license applicant would have to specifically decline to register to vote.

These provisions of the AVR legislation will not come into effect until Illinois has met the requirements of the federal REAL ID Act of 2005. (The State of Illinois currently has an extension to comply until October 10, 2018.) And, of course, Illinois driver's licenses that are compliant with the REAL ID Act can only be issued to lawful citizens.

Meanwhile, according to the CBOE, "the portion of the law related to data updates has been in effect, meaning all of the jurisdictions are receiving more updates of records without the voters having to take any action."

The CBOE cites two long-term goals for AVR -- to "update records and send voters their new voter card and polling place information more seamlessly" and to "expand the voter rolls to include a greater share of all eligible voters." The net result, curiously enough, according to the CBOE, "could be higher turnouts in terms of raw numbers of voters casting ballots, but lower 'turnout rates' because achieving, for example, 70% turnout will now require that many more voters to come out."

In sum, then, increased registration efforts have led to increased voter registration, even as the population declines. With the AVR legislation, the numbers of registered voters should increase further still, even if the population decline is not reversed.

Guest Post: Dr. Klumpp looks at the judicial primary results

by Albert J. Klumpp

Heading into last Tuesday’s primary, the biggest question for the judicial contests here in Cook County was whether or not the emerging #MeToo movement would translate into a large boost for female candidates. Two weeks earlier, Texas held its first-in-the-nation 2018 primary, and female candidates as a group had their most successful primary in the state’s history. And with Cook County’s long record of pro-female voting in judicial contests, there was good reason to expect similar results here.

The results do in fact show a solid pro-female vote—but not an exceptional one. And arguably the bigger story lies elsewhere.

As I’ve done in the past for FWIW, I analyzed the results of last Tuesday’s primary using the statistical procedure that I developed for studying groups of nonpartisan or party-primary judicial contests. This time the analysis was less successful than in past years due to the smaller-than-usual number of candidates; the data set was not large enough to accurately measure all of the relevant variables. But combining the better of the statistical estimates with the more crude measure of raw tallies produces a reasonably complete picture of the major voting patterns.

The pro-female vote was in the range of 18 percentage points. This is higher than the county’s historical average, but several points lower than in 2008 and 2016 when a female presidential candidate with local ties topped the Democratic ballot. Raw tallies support that figure: in the 24 Democratic contests between at least one female and at least one male, females won 17, a substantial but slightly lower proportion than in 2008 when females won 18 of 23 such contests and in 2016 when females won 14 of 18.

While the gender vote was stronger than in most past primaries, at least two of the other traditionally influential factors were weaker. The results for Irish-named candidates suggest an advantage of no more than 7 percentage points countywide. This compares to the long-term average of roughly 11 points, a value that has been fairly consistent across primaries.

Also slightly lower was the value of slating, for the second consecutive primary. Two years ago the advantage for slated countywide candidates was only around half of the historical average of roughly 10 pecentage points. This year its value was higher but no more than 8 points for countywide candidates. Including the subcircuits, candidates who were slated or held substantial endorsement advantages subcircuit-wide fared better than two years ago, winning at a 54 percent rate compared to 42 percent in 2016, but still below historical averages.

Two factors that I could not adequately measure were ballot position and use of bar/newspaper recommendations. The first ballot position appeared to be worth roughly 4 percentage points (a lower number than in the recent past) but the data set was not large enough to be certain of this.

Use of newspaper and bar ratings can be very difficult to measure in a single primary, in part because the various sources tend to agree with each other to an extent that can obscure analysis. The raw tallies suggest that their use in last week’s primary was at rates more or less consistent with long-term averages. Tribune-endorsed candidates won 20 of the 37 contests, a 54 percent rate compared to the twenty-year average of 57 percent. In the subset of contests in which the Chicago Bar Association rated a single candidate higher than the others, those candidates won 13 of 21 contests, a 62 percent rate versus the twenty-year average of 56 percent. For Chicago Council of Lawyers ratings, the subset numbers were 9 of 14 wins, a 64 percent rate versus the twenty-year average of 55 percent. None of the three percentages differ from the twenty-year averages by a statistically significant margin. (Also, the twenty-year averages for bar ratings include several primaries in which the Sun-Times did not emphasize bar ratings as it did this year but instead endorsed candidates itself). Historically the value of holding both major newspaper endorsements and the highest bar ratings in a contest has been in the 10-12 point range, and nothing in the evidence suggests a substantial shift from that range in 2018.

The one other historically important variable is campaign spending, which in the subcircuits can play a major role. Unfortunately, campaign spending numbers won’t be complete and publicly available for some time yet. So the matter will be left for a future FWIW post.

All of these factors aside, what may be the most significant aspect of the 2018 primary is the strong showing by Hispanic candidates. Certain Hispanic candidates have done well in some previous primaries, but in this primary not only did Hispanic-surnamed candidates win contests in four different subcircuits, including the groundbreaking result in the 14th, but there also was a very strong vote for the lone Hispanic candidate running countywide. Notably, these results are also consistent with a previous FWIW post pointing out an increase in the proportion of registered voters among the county’s population. This is entirely speculative but if recent political events have spurred more Hispanic residents to vote for the first time, a stronger showing by Hispanic candidates would be expected.

Finally, let’s dispel a couple of misconceptions about factors that were not important. First, it is not the case that voter dropoff for the judicial contests was unusually low this primary after increasing in recent years. In fact, dropoff has been steadily falling over the years, as the chart below illustrates, and was not abnormally high or low this time. And second, voter turnout was not exceptionally high. Turnout in primaries is driven by interest in and competitiveness of contests at the top of the ballot. This year’s primary, with competitive gubernatorial contests in both parties, is most comparable to those of 2002 and 2010. Cook County turnout in those primaries was 36.4% and 26.3%, respectively, so this year’s turnout of 30.0% was not out of the ordinary.

As I pointed out recently, last Tuesday’s primary was the first since the 1992 debut of subcircuit elections in which every contest on both party ballots included at least one candidate rated “Qualified” or higher by both the CBA and CCL. But in the end, that milestone may be less remembered than the potentially game-changing emergence of the strong pro-Hispanic vote. Unfortunately there have not been enough Hispanic candidates in previous primaries to do a more through examination of voting patterns here. But that will likely change in the very near future.

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Albert J. Klumpp has been a generous and frequent contributor to this blog over the years. A research analyst with a public policy PhD, Klumpp is the author of several scholarly works analyzing judicial elections including, most recently, Alaska’s Judicial Retention Elections: A Comparative Analysis, 34 Alaska Law Review 143-160 (2017). Other works include Judicial Primary Elections in Cook County, Illinois: Fear the Irish Women!, 60 DePaul L. Rev. 821 (2011); "Voter Information and Judicial Retention Elections in Illinois," 94 Ill. B.J. 538 (October 2006); and "Cook County Judicial Elections: Partisanship, Campaign Spending, & Voter Information," CBA Record, January 2007 (p. 34).

Brendan Shiller responds to yesterday's post about judicial campaign tactics

The following was received from attorney Brendan Shiller as an email. With the consent of Mr. Shiller, it is reprinted here as a guest post. Please note that that I have corrected yesterday's post to delete the incorrect assertion I made about John Preston that Mr. Shiller points out below. I apologize for the error.

A couple of people forwarded your blog post regarding the Judicial Accountability PAC to me. First, let me say the the whole post was generally accurate and mostly fair.

We do have an honest disagreement about what is appropriate in judicial elections. I think we have created a hybrid democratic process for judicial elections that results in a huge disservice to the voter and therefore to our justice system. By both not allowing judicial candidates to speak on issues and by not allowing the same type of negative campaigning that we allow for all other elected offices, we deprive voters of important information. I of course understand the principal of not wanting to undermine the integrity of the judiciary. But, if we are going to have elected judges, then we need to allow all of the means of communication and debate (vagaries and all) that are generally allowed in democratic elections. It is my hope that going forward the Judicial Accountability PAC and other PACs will fill this void and provide more information and more energy in judicial elections.

As for your specific argument that the PAC crossed some type of bright line by making an argument against a candidate because of who she represented, I think there is an honest disagreement here. I have spent a career suing cops and representing the criminally accused. If I ever choose to run for any elected office (i.e. Alderman, Governor, State Senate, etc.), I can guarantee you that such representation would be used in attacks against me (if I were a legitimate candidate that had a chance of winning). And, it would be completely fair. I chose to be a civil rights attorney and a criminal defense attorney. That all people have a right to representation does not in anyway diminish the argument that attorneys choose what type of law they engage in and who they represent and that these choices reflect a certain bias and perspective on the world that may carry over to the bench. Further, this history of representation is even more important (even more probative to use the evidentiary standard) to voting given that our rules prevent candidates from discussing their position on most issues and most controversies they will be judging.

There was absolutely nothing illegal or unethical about the activities of the Judicial Accountability PAC in the Navarro/Golden campaign. This cannot be said of the activity in the Beach/Webber campaign where there were clear campaign finance violations. Once the PAC's quarterly report is filed, 100 percent of all donations and expenditures will be made public. And over the course of this summer, hopefully as the PAC adds hundreds of attorneys members, and creates a full board and bylaws, all of its future actions will be democratic and transparent. This is how we want democracy to work. Without vehicles such as this PAC there will continue to be negativity shrouded in secrecy such as the Webber mailing against Beach that is both unethical and illegal.

Lastly, and most importantly, there was one specific factual inaccuracy in your blog. The John Preston that is the chairman of the PAC is actually a different John Preston than the one I represented in a civil rights case several years ago. I know that's a weird coincidence, but I happen to know multiple John Prestons. The John Preston that is the chairman is fairly well known in certain small activist circles and is about three times as old as the John Present that sued CPD.

Thank you for all the work that you do. I am a big fan.

Was this election cycle rougher than previous ones?

Updated March 28, 2018 to correct factual error.

My working hypothesis is 'yes.'

I was going to go off on a rant about how, with the best of intentions, trying to obtain heightened public interest in Cook County judicial races, we have 'let the Snake in the Garden.' The infamous 'poser' video was to be Exhibit A.

And then I took a breath.

We elect judges in a partisan primary process. Candidates vie for slating, or for political support despite slating. The Snake has always been in the Garden. Actually, since human beings are inherently political animals, we can't take politics out of the judicial selection process, whatever process we employ. (And that includes so-called 'merit' selection -- a topic for a different day, if we must.)

But I had long maintained that judicial elections were different than elections for alderman or state representative. Different and better: Judicial candidates were civil to one another -- for one thing, during the campaign the candidates often seemed to see more of each other -- including their opponents -- than they did their own families. So there was a kind of Stockholm Syndrome that took hold. Also, the lawyers campaigning for judge were going to be in court, one way or another, when the dust from the campaign settled, and one might wind up appearing in a case before one's former opponent. As a purely practical, selfish matter, it was better not to create hard feelings during the campaign that would damage one's ability to practice afterwards.

I first developed these impressions when I ran in 1994 and 1996. But I have seen further evidence of this candidate cordiality since I've been writing this blog.

My favorite example dates to 2008, when a candidate emailed me about my very first set of Organizing the Data posts. I had made a transcription error concerning one of his opponents, he wrote. His opponent was not rated Qualified by whatever group, he continued; no, he said, she was actually rated Highly Qualified.

Imagine that happening in a race for the General Assembly.

During the election just concluded, after early voting began, one subcircuit candidate took to Facebook to complain about being hassled at an early voting site by one of her opponent's campaign workers. Her opponent promptly responded on the Facebook post, acknowledging responsibility for the errant campaign worker, repudiating his behavior, and advising that he had instructed the person in question to never do that again.

I can certainly imagine a candidate for the General Assembly being hassled at an early voting site -- but I doubt if the opponent's reaction would have been as unequivocal. Or as credible.

Even so, that's a degree of bad behavior that I've not associated with judicial campaigns. I blame money.

Dr. Klumpp will eventually weigh in on this, I assume, but it's my perception that, with increased attention being paid to judicial campaigns, there is also an increase in spending on judicial campaigns. It isn't just friends and family and valued colleagues volunteering to pass out the candidate's literature: These days, a lot of candidates appear to be hiring help at all stages of the campaign, from petitions to election day.

Many judicial candidates are engaging professional campaign consultants these days to help them run their campaigns. When I ran for judge, and even after I began covering judicial elections on this blog, I did not know that such creatures existed. I became aware of them only gradually.

In part this was due to my naivete and ignorance, but it was also due, I think, to the fact that not as many campaigns employed consultants back in the day and to the fact that those consultants that were employed then tended to maintain a lower profile than many judicial campaign consultants do now. Some campaign consultants have come into the judicial candidate consulting business after successfully promoting aldermanic or legislative candidates. And they bring their 'tricks of the trade' with them.

Negative mailers, for one, like this gem from the 6th Subcircuit:

If you look at this for a nanosecond, you will see that Judge Beach was 'accused' of challenging the assessment on his home -- you know, a perfectly legal thing to do. Politicians of all stripes offer seminars in how homeowners can make these challenges every single year.

But, wait, there's 'more': A person interested in becoming a judge actually donated money to the Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. And....? I've never had the discretionary income available to donate money to politicians -- one of the many reasons why I'll never be a judge -- but Mr. Beach did have some shekels left in the till on occasion and allegedly employed them thusly. Which, by the way, is also an entirely legal thing to do. So good for him.

But most voters wouldn't look at this piece for even long enough to think that through. On the way to the recycling bin, however, voters might absorb the sneering, nasty tone of the piece and think less favorably of Judge Beach. That's all that mattered to the sender.

The unidentified sender.

I don't pretend to know if this piece originated with another candidate's consultant. I make no assertion in this regard; I cast no aspersions. But it's a low tactic and one I'd not seen employed in a Circuit Court race heretofore. Hence, my hypothesis that this campaign was coarser than campaigns I'd covered heretofore.

There are always outsiders trying to influence judicial elections; that's not new and it's not generally objectionable. I've been printing endorsements from this group, or that one, since I started covering this beat.

Sometimes groups are formed solely for the purpose of influencing judicial elections. And that's OK, too. In this election cycle one such group was the Judicial Accountability PAC.

Attorney Brendan Shiller of Shiller Preyar was the moving force behind this pop-up PAC. (If you look, you'll see that John Preston was named as Chairman of the group, and a present or former Shiller Preyar paralegal, Roberto Lopez, was named as Treasurer. However, I have confirmed with multiple sources that Shiller was the real force behind the group.)

Shiller, who has also managed election campaigns, including judicial campaigns, used Judicial Accountability PAC to support Judges Kent Delgado, Charlie Beach, and Stephanie Miller in their 6th Subcircuit campaigns and also Arthur Wesley Willis and Judges Fred Bates, Adrienne Davis, Toya Harvey, Travis Richardson, and Debra Seaton in their respective 2nd Subcircuit campaigns.

Again, there is nothing wrong with forming a group to influence election results, and certainly nothing inherently wrong with supporting this candidate over that one.

However, in the 4th Subcircuit, the Judicial Accountability PAC went negative in its support of Judge David Navarro and Attorney Martin Reggi.

Judicial Accountability PAC sent some positive Navarro mailers, too, but my objection is to the one (which does not appear to be online anymore, of course) in which Navarro's opponent was blasted for having represented Jon Burge. (Among other areas of practice, Shiller's firm represents individuals in excessive force cases against police officers.) The implication of the Shiller-Judicial Accountability PAC piece was that Navarro's opponent was somehow in league with, and in sympathy with, police torturers.

That crosses a big, bright line for me.

Movie stereotypes notwithstanding, good lawyers represent their clients, they do not become them.

Similarly, in a number of comments you never saw, a countywide candidate was castigated for her many years of working for a firm that has long and successfully represented a number of substandard carriers. (At least some of principals in the firm also owned one of those carriers, at least at one time.) And, granted, if you've ever had to deal with that firm, you probably have a horror story or two about your experiences. I do. But everyone, even a substandard insurance carrier or a police torturer, is entitled to zealous, but ethical, representation.

And lawyers, of all people, should know better than to suggest otherwise.

Just as lawyers should not be smeared for representing unpopular clients, judges should not be targeted solely on account of their assignments.

Judge Navarro and Judge Stephanie Miller were among the judges assigned to the new Pretrial Division of the Circuit Court last September when it was set up to implement the Circuit Court's new affordable bail program. Whether you think the affordable bail plan good or bad, well-thought-out or in urgent need of refinement, it was obvious from the start that it would be controversial. And so it was, on Election Day, that Second City Cop tweeted support for Navarro's opponent because Navarro "has given WAY TOO MANY serious criminals super low bonds or signature bonds."

It is one thing to criticize a judge for performing poorly in an assignment, for treating counsel or litigants shabbily, or for making intemperate or injudicious remarks -- but it is quite another to criticize a judge for implementing a program as per instructions. Particularly when the judges in question are new and unlikely to have had any serious input into how the program was rolled out.

One group of candidates that did not apparently suffer in this election cycle on account of their job responsibilities were the several present or former Assistant Public Defenders (a dozen or more) who were successful in winning their primary elections.

I don't know of any APDs who were the target of negative mailers in this election cycle because they took on the representation of persons accused of crimes, sometimes heinous, infamous crimes.

But I did hear of one APD who was targeted for campaign finance violations because of money donated to her campaign by her mother. Which was -- despite the complaint -- almost certainly legal. (I say almost certainly because I never received confirmation that the complaint was dismissed by the Illinois State Board of Elections. I am confident that it was -- but I do not know.) Again, I do not suggest that the APD's opponent knew about the complaint before it was lodged -- but the candidate whose supporter initiated this complaint was not well served by this 'assistance.'

No, on balance, I think there was more negative campaigning, more questionable tactics, and more badly-spent money, than in any judicial campaign I've covered previously.

Perhaps you think differently. Perhaps you have further anecdotal support for my hypothesis -- or can recount events that undermine it.

But... please... don't get personal in the comments. I want to print as many as I can.

More fun with numbers: County population drops while numbers of registered voters increases

The Tribune reported yesterday that population has dropped in the Chicago area for a third consecutive year. Elvia Malagon writes that population has actually increased in some of the collar counties, but has not increased enough to offset the loss of population here in County Cook.

What does that have to do with judges, you ask? Well, a few years back, when the 2010 census figures confirmed a significant population loss, the number of associate judge vacancies was immediately scaled back. Full circuit judges are creatures of statute, but the number of AJs in Cook County rises and falls with population.

More generally, the numbers of people living here should have an impact on the numbers of people voting in judicial elections. But the numbers are clear as mud:

According to Malagon's story, Cook County lost 20,093 residents in 2017, more than 14,000 residents in 2016, and another 8,000 residents in 2015. That's a drop of 42,000 or so since 2014, right?

On the other hand, there were 1,368,290 voters registered in Chicago for the 2014 Primary, according to the Chicago Board of Election's Official Summary Report of that election. There were 1,451,593 registered voters in the suburbs in that same year according to the County Clerk's Summary Report of the March 2014 General Primary Election. That adds up to 2,819,883 registered voters in Cook County in 2014.

For this primary, according to the CBOE, there were 1,494,199 registered voters in the City of Chicago. The County Clerk says there were 1,549,688 registered voters in the suburbs for this election. That adds up to 3,043,887 voters in the county as a whole.

The county's population dropped by 42,000 in the last four years and yet the voting rolls increased by 224,004.

Ah, but you say, we've made it easier to register in recent years; we've made a great civic effort to make sure every eligible citizen is registered to vote.

OK. That could account for some increase. Maybe. But, still, the trend lines seem remarkably different, aren't they?

You wold expect (I would expect, anyway) that voter registration would be highest for a presidential election. In 2016, for the November election, the City of Chicago reported 1,570,529 registered voters; the County Clerk reported 1,512,190 voters. That's 3,082,719 voters, almost 40,000 more than were registered for this election just past.

In 2012, there were 1,384,671 registered voters in the City of Chicago and another 1,416,811 registered voters in suburban Cook County. That's 2,801,482 total registered voters for Cook County in the November 2012 general election when Chicago resident Barack Obama was on the ballot seeking a second term in the White House. (And that may not have been the only reason, but it surely was a factor in why, in terms of percentages of registered voters, there was a greater turnout in 2012 than in 2016.)

But even though more a higher percentage of registered voters came out in 2012 than in 2016, there were 280,000 fewer registered voters in 2012 than in 2016. And the population was dropping, right? Well, not necessarily.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Cook County has grown, albeit by only .2%, since 2010. In that year, according to the Census Bureau, Cook County had a population of 5,194,675. The Bureau now estimates the population of Cook County (as of July 1, 2017) to be 5,211,263 -- an increase -- but an increase of only 16,588. And the 5,211,263 population figure for 2017 is 16,312 less than the population figure for 2016 (5,227,575) on that site. And did you notice that none of these numbers are the same as those cited in the Tribune article? But, any way you slice it, Cook County's population did not go up 280,000 between 2012 and 2016.

I'm not going to make any dramatic assertions based on this data, and I don't think any are warranted. But I sure would like some serious explanation as to how we can be losing residents and gaining voters at the same time. I'll be launching some queries today and I will update if I receive anything back.

Starting to look at Tuesday's results -- and asking about the impact of turnout on judicial races

Much as I might prefer it otherwise, Cook County judicial elections are affected by other political races, and in multiple ways.

Turnout has to be the biggest factor. And, whatever we learned in civics about it being the duty of every responsible citizen to vote in every election, voters only come out for marquee, hot-button races.

You know, the kind of races political professionals hate.

There’s a reason why primaries are scheduled so early – the political pros like it this way. Why?

The vast majority of the great unwashed (that’s us, to the pros) aren’t thinking about November in March. We’re thinking about more immediate concerns, like paying the rent or mortgage for the coming month (or the current month!). Maybe we’re thinking as far ahead as Easter or Passover and who’s going where. Maybe we’re thinking about Opening Day. But we aren’t thinking about November. And most of us – the vast majority of us – don’t bother voting in primaries.

The total number of ballots pulled for this primary, City and suburbs, Democrat, Republican, Green, and non-partisan, was 914,972. Of these, 774,666 Democratic ballots were voted. According to the Cook County Clerk, that means only 28.6% of the registered voters in the suburbs made it out to the polls. It was a little better in the City of Chicago, but not much: Only 31.52% of the voters bothered to take any sort of primary ballot.

And even that meager turnout is anathema to the political professionals: The larger the turnout, the harder it is to control the results. Because, for the real political pros, results are all that matter – getting in, and staying in.

In 2014, when we had our last gubernatorial primary, only 16.54% of the registered voters in the City of Chicago bothered to vote, according to the records of the Chicago Board of Elections. Only about 16% (15.99%) of the registered voters came out in the suburbs, according to the Cook County Clerk’s records.

In 2010 – a year that election officials are comparing this current primary to – only 24.54% of the eligible voters in suburban Cook County came out. In the City, according to the CBOE, turnout was 27.28%. (The primary was on Groundhog’s Day in 2010; perhaps the rest of the voters saw their shadows and stayed home.)

So let’s compare 2010 and 2018 in a couple of races. Take the 3rd Congressional District, for example. In 2010, Daniel Lipinski faced no foe in the primary. He nevertheless received 57,864 votes, according to records maintained by the Illinois State Board of Elections. (In 2014, again with no primary opponent, Lipinski had 28,883 votes.)

This year, Lipinski had a very vigorous challenge from Marie Newman. The 3rd District covers parts of Cook, DuPage and Will Counties.

Lipinski lost in the Cook County suburbs, with Newman polling 24,488 votes to Lipinski’s 22,977. He lost in DuPage, 80 to 52. He also lost in Will County, 4,212 to 2,975. But Lipiski prevailed because he carried the City of Chicago, 21,846 to 16,839.

But add that up: With similar turnouts city- and countywide, even with a strong challenger, Lipinski had only 10,000 fewer votes than he got in 2010 when he was unopposed. In other words, his challenger, who got 45,619 votes, brought out at least 35,000 ‘extra’ votes. Those extra votes might have been motivated by Newman’s strong union support – but there was likely a strong gender component at work there as well. That would have consequences in countywide judicial races and in subcircuits overlapping the 3rd Congressional District’s boundaries.

In the 4th Congressional District, Luis Gutiérrez stepped aside at the last minute in favor of Chuy Garcia. Notwithstanding this passing of the baton, a whole bunch of wannabes jumped in, including a bunch of political pros... and then, one by one, all the political pros dropped out, leaving Garcia up against only Richard Gonzalez and Sol Flores.

Like Lipinski, Gutiérrez was unopposed in 2010 – and he got 34,000 votes.

The pros got out, each citing the overwhelming support they'd seen for Garcia. Cloaking Garcia with the mantle of inevitability should have tamped down voter turnout.

But it does not seem to have worked: In 2018 there were a total of 74,620 votes cast between the City and suburbs in the 4th Congressional District. Garcia and (I would submit in particular) Flores brought out a lot of ‘extra’ voters – and Daniel Burke lost his 1st District House primary race – and Beatriz Frausto-Sandoval won her primary race in the 14th Judicial Subcircuit.

Extra voters aren’t controllable.

In 2010, Toni Preckwinkle needed 281,905 votes (out of 575,483 votes cast) to unseat Todd Stroger and fend off Terry O’Brien and Dorothy Brown. This year, Preckwinkle got 249,180 votes in the City alone, and another 183,338 in the suburbs, in defeating Bob Fioretti. The total number of votes cast in this race, however, was 713,158 – over 100,000 ‘extra’ votes over 2010.

In 2010, when Joseph Berrios first won nomination to be Cook County Assessor, he won 203,397 votes, out of 519,716 cast. This year, in losing, Berrios polled 237,992 votes – but there were 700,841 votes cast in this race.

These are ‘down ballot’ races. Historically, there is an increasing drop-off between the top of the ballot, where the would-be governors and senators and presidents are, and the very bottom of the ballot, where the judges are. When the sharp-pencil crowd finishes looking at these numbers, I suspect they’ll find less drop-off than usual between the top of the ballot and these county races. That would mean that extra people came out looking to vote in these races – and if they went that far down the ballot, more voters than usual may have kept right on going into the judicial races.

Moreover, while 2018 is being compared to 2010 by election authorities, there were only 761,626 total ballots voted in Cook County – City and suburbs – in 2010. That’s just about the number of Democratic ballots alone in 2018 – 774,666 Democratic ballots out of 914,972 total. So that’s about 150,000 ‘extra’ Democratic voters in 2018 over 2010. Who were these voters? How did they impact judicial races?

In the modern age, political professionals have enormous amounts of data about us proles. They not only know if we vote, in many cases they can accurately predict how we’ll vote if we can be bothered to come out. And, if they’re worried about whether we’ll do what they want, they’d just as soon we stayed home, thank you.

But that’s for a subsequent post.

Contests now set for three 13th Subcircuit vacancies

The third time proved the charm for Gary W. Seyring.

After falling short in the 2014 and 2016 primaries, Seyring won his race tonight for the Crane vacancy, besting Susanne Groebner 10,806 to 7,698.

Seyring will now face former Judge Ketki "Kay" Steffen in November. Steffen was unopposed in the Democratic primary for this vacancy.

In the race for the Lawrence vacancy, Daniel Patrick Fitzgerald handily defeated appointed Judge Michael Perry Gerber. Fitzgerald will now face Shannon P. O'Malley, the Democratic nominee. O'Malley began his legal career sub nomine Philip Spiwak.

Christine Svenson was unopposed for the Republican nomination for the O'Donnell vacancy. She will face Judge Samuel Betar III in November. Betar was likewise unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

November contest set in 12th Subcircuit

A November contest appears set between Democrat Joel Chupack and Republican David Studenroth in the race for the Maki vacancy in the 12th Subcircuit.

Studenroth handily won his primary race over Alan M. Jacob. Chupack bested Carmine Trombetta and Thomas Raymond Molitor.

Barrett, McKenna prevail in 15th Subcircuit

Michael B. Barrett bested Ashonta Rice-Akiwowo in the race for the Scully, Jr. vacancy in the 15th Subcircuit. With 277 of 285 precincts reporting, Barrett leads 27,787 to 19,576.

This must be vindication of a sort for Barrett: He lost a 2014 bid for a 15th Subcircuit vacancy by only 15 votes.

In the race for the Zelezinski vacancy, Scott McKenna has apparently defeated Judge Anthony C. Swanagan. The margin at this point is 2,269 votes. Unlike most primary winners, however, McKenna must now face a November opponent: Karla Marie Fiaoni was unopposed in her bid for the Republican nomination for this vacancy.

4th Subcircuit results

The Chicago Federation of Labor endorsement may have been pretty darn important: Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Ciaccia-Lezza picked that up – and picked up an apparent victory over Judge John Andrew O’Meara in the race for the Riley vacancy in the 4th Subcircuit.

Only 759 votes separate these two candidates, with Ciaccia-Lezza leading 13,270 to 12,511. There are still six precincts outstanding at this writing, but 97.5% of the votes have been posted.

Martin D. Reggi and Danny Collins also sought this vacancy.

In the race for the Davy vacancy, Judge David R. Navarro leads first-time candidate Caroline Jamieson Golden, 21,607 to 17,093.

Eight of 10 slated candidates win countywide races

Looking for a last time this evening at the countywide races:

Two slated candidates got in without opposition, Rosa Maria Silva and Thomas F. McGuire.

Slated candidates winning contested races are Judges Preston Jones Jr., Cecilia Anne Horan, Clare Joyce Quish, Peter Michael Gonzalez.

Tom Sam Sianis appears to be eking out a victory over Timothy John Leeming and Corri Diane Fetman. In City returns, with 94.25% of the votes counted, Sianis has 115,658 votes, Fetman 100,108, and Leeming 98,959. In the suburbs, Sianis has 89,130 votes, just a few thousand more than Fetman’s 86,264 (Leeming had 80,745 votes in the suburbs).

Jack Hagerty is leading Mable Taylor by 33,000 votes in City returns and by 54,000 votes in suburban returns.

So eight slated candidates will apparently win. But two will not.

Judge Oran F. Whiting has apparently fallen to Kathryn Maloney Vahey. With 93% of the City votes counted, Vahey leads 137,977 to 119,335. In the suburbs, Vahey leads 117,069 to 86,300. John Maher was the third candidate in this race.

Slated candidate Jonathan Clark Green will fall to Kathaleen Theresa Lanahan. In City returns, Lanahan leads 114,686 to 89,325; in suburban returns, Lanahan is up 102,155 to 58,680. Michael I. O’Malley and Lori Ann Roper were also candidates in this race.

Appointed judges do well in 5th Subcircuit

Three appointed judges appear likely to win their respective 5th Subcircuit races.

Judge H. Yvonne Coleman is leading Rhonda Sallee, Gino Betts, and Gwendolyn D. Anderson in the race for the Banks vacancy. Coleman has 10,773 votes with 91.55% of the votes counted; Sallee, Betts, and Anderson are all bunched together. Each garnered more than 7,000 votes.

Judge Marian Emily Perkins has 12,140 votes in the race for the Jones vacancy. Jenetia Marshall and David L. Kelly have both polled more than 10,000 votes.

Judge Robert Harris’s margin is significantly more comfortable. In the race for the Washington II vacancy, Harris has 18,586 votes, a nearly 10,000 vote margin over Shay Tyron Allen. Mary Alice Melchor was also in this race.

Rosado wins in 11th Subcircuit

Judge Joanne Rosado will hold her 11th Subcircuit seat, leading Scott J. Frankel by significant margins in both City and suburban returns.

On the other hand, slated candidates prevail in 10th Subcircuit

Judge Stephanie Saltouros is handily winning the race for the O’Neill Burke vacancy in the 10th Subcircuit. With 93.75% of the City votes counted, Saltouros leads Lorraine Murphy, her nearest competitor, 19,983 to 9,982. In the suburbs, with 58 of 61 precincts reporting, Saltouros leads Murphy 3,261 to 1,946. Gwyn E. Ward Brown was also a candidate in this race.

Colleen Reardon Daly was slated for the 10th Subcircuit Suriano vacancy, but she was dumped recently by 45th Ward Ald. and Committeeman John Arena.

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Daly leads her nearest competitor, Judge Gerald Cleary, 19,141 to 5,903 in the City and 2,509 to 1,157 in suburban returns.

Bad night for slated candidates in 8th Subcircuit

Three appointed judges were slated in the 8th Subcircuit.

Judge Robin Denise Shoffner was slated for the Fabri vacancy. Judge Michael A. Forti was slated for the Liu vacancy. Judge Myron “Mike” Mackoff was slated for the Pethers vacancy.

All appear to be going down to defeat.

With 85.17% of the votes counted, it looks like former Judge James “Jamie” Shapiro will return to the bench, leading with 21,445 votes to Shoffner’s 12,384. Bonnie McGrath is third in the field of five candidates in this race.

Lindsay Hugé has a 2,900 vote edge over Forti, 17,901 to 15,012. ASA (and former Luvabull) Athena A. Farmakis has polled over 12,000 votes in her first judicial campaign.

Judge Jeanne Wrenn was appointed to a new 8th Subcircuit vacancy just last month. But she was already seeking the Pethers vacancy – and it appears that she has won this race, leading Mackoff 20,391 to 16,060. First-time judicial candidate Rishi Agrawal has polled 10,006 votes.